English Lecture 23 - Jan 04.docx

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School

Western University

Department

English

Course

English 1022E

Professor

David Bentley

Semester

Winter

Description

ENGLISH 1022E January 4 , 2011
ENGLISH – Lecture 23
KOMOS: revel, celebration – relating to comedy
GAMOS: union – relation to comedy
PASTORAL (pastor = shepherd)
BLOCKING CHARACTER
GREAT CHAIN OF BEING
ELIZABETHAN WORLDVIEW
CHRISTIAN-HUMANISM
“Silvery laughter” – George Meredith
“Comedy is inclined to imitate persons below the level of our world, tragedy above us.” – Aristotle
us
“All comedies end in marriage”
Why? Because marriages signify union.
COMEDY…
- Often associated with spring, because it brings us upwards through winter into the life and
rebirth of spring, and then the warmth and recovery of summer. Both will be evident in The
Tempest and Paradise Lost.
- Movement from characters we would look down on into characters we would look up on.
Characters who were despicable become admirable.
- Realistic Comedy: lower part of the quadrant, low-life characters, urban city, harshly satirical
- Romantic Comedy: set in upper quadrant, high-born/high-life characters, some low-life, and not
urban, not gritty underbelly, more of a pastoral setting. Forests, pastures. The Tempest is set on
what is believed to be a knock-off of Bermuda, but he situates it somewhere else. Satire will be
gentle, horatian satire. ENGLISH 1022E January 4 , 2011
THE TEMPEST…
- High-Life: Prospero, Miranda, the core group
- Caliban, Trinculo, Stephano, the mariners, etc
- Silvery Laughter – tinkling, feel good laugh at the end of the comedy.
CHARACTERS…
- Prospero: magician, wise older man. Equivalent to Merlin. Master of white magic, using it for
the good. He has brought people to the Island to make them better, correct their lives. In that
way, he is similar to Morgan Le Fay in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by sending the Green
Knight to the court to test the court and make them better. Time is of the essence in The
Tempest—he has waited for years to bring the other characters to the island to better them.
- Ariel: the air, of the spirit world, of harmony and music, and against him is a play full of the
opposite, mostly spirit
- Caliban: close to being an animal, all body, he would happily of people the Island by use of
Miranda, happily rape h